Man to be sentenced for indecent phone calls across B.C.

Sentencing is to get underway this month for a Vancouver Island man charged in connection with harassing and indecent phone and video calls that were made to women across B.C. between September 2017 and April 2018.

BC Prosecution Service communications counsel Dan McLaughlin confirmed Monday that Joel Perry is to return to Surrey Provincial Court for a sentencing hearing on March 25. The date was set during a brief appearance Monday morning.

Perry, a Qualicum Beach resident, was arrested last May 16. Of 70 charges approved by the BC Prosecution Service, court records show 15 relate to incidents in White Rock. Offences were also reported in Surrey and Langley.

Asked this week about the White Rock incidents, Surrey RCMP Const. Elenore Sturko told Peace Arch News that police will not be releasing any further details about the investigation.

McLaughlin said guilty pleas were entered on Dec. 14. Online court records show a total of 32 guilty pleas.

Mounties had issued a warning in February 2018, after several women came forward to report that they had received disturbing calls. The caller, according to the warning, would identify the women by name and address, claim he was watching them through cameras he had installed in their homes and demand they engage in sexually explicit conversation or they or their family members would be killed.

While most of the calls targeted women on their home phone number, some women employed at lingerie and swimwear stores reported receiving calls at their workplace as well, police said at the time.

Police said there was no evidence to suggest the caller had installed cameras, and that they believed the man had been gleaning the women’s personal information through their social-media accounts.

A release announcing the charges notes the investigation leading to Perry’s arrest was “a co-ordinated effort led by the Surrey RCMP’s General Investigation Unit.”

“Although these incidents took place across BC, it was an investigator in Surrey who identified key evidence linking all of the offences.”